The History of PARADE!!

An original dance theater work, at the Heymann Performing Arts Center on March 16, 2017, 7 pm. The contemporary dance is a reinterpretation of a historical work that is over 100 years old.

In 1917, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes premiered Parade in Paris with music by Erik Satie, scenery and costumes by Pablo Picasso, choreography by Léonide Massine, and book by Jean Cocteau. The collaboration began in the midst of World War I as many were challenging the rigid, tradition bound aesthetic of the bourgeois society. In Cocteau’s words, he wanted the ballet to reflect the “brash commercialism of modern life.”

Parade was the first work of art to be labeled as Surrealism, pre-dating the visual art movement in Paris by three years. Everyday sounds and popular entertainment of the period such as Parisian music halls and American Silent Films were influential in all aspects of the ballet. The scenario of the original ballet features the failed attempt of a troupe of performers who emerge from Picasso’s famous scenery to dance in the street with the hope that spectators will pay to come inside the theater for the real show.

100 years later we revisit Parade through the intersection of architecture, dance, and technology while drawing new inspiration from Satie’s original score. In 2018, the space between the virtual and physical worlds has been drastically redefined by our interdependence on technology and even our everyday human movement vocabulary has changed.

Basin Dance Collective takes a “behind-the-scenes” approach to this version of PARADE exposing the creative process of “making a dance” and juxtaposing that with society’s performative, yet possibly antiquated perceptions of technology. Images of data moving through chains, computer programming maps, blue screens and humming noises; this “techno-jargon” is still associated with the robotic and controlled nature of how we imagine the performance of “technology”. So much that, we do not even notice the complete integration of technology into our human experience…facebook, instagram, email, text messaging. Also, there is no longer a distinction of our tangible, inhabitable space and the space we occupy virtually. There are screens everywhere and they have become part of our skin…apple watches, fitbits, iphones, ipads, laptops, google glasses.

We have become one with technology. In 2018, everyone is a performer and the performance becomes our humanity.

In less than five minutes you’ll get a crash course in PARADE history and hear more Basin Dance Collective’s approach to the project!